That Elusive Quality
by KCS
Summary: Two oneshots, dealing with the aftermath of 3GAR. One each for H&W's respective POVs.
1. Defining that Elusive Quality

_**Defining That Elusive Quality**_

* * *

_-This one's in answer to a special request from **Igiveup.**

* * *

_

I light my oldest, most comforting pipe with a shaking hand, my nerves still somewhat shattered from this nightmarish evening's events. Behind me, I can hear Watson's steady, labored breathing as he sleeps under the influence of the morphine Anstruther gave him an hour ago.

I start as the clock strikes eleven – proof of how shaken I am by this night's events is quite evident in the fact that even that most familiar noise is enough to make even my iron nerve to be on edge.

I must find some way to pull myself together. Watson shall awaken in two or three hours, and I cannot appear to be anything other than what he is accustomed to seeing me as. He will need normality in addition to medical care if his recovery is to be as easy as possible.

I had wanted for us both to take a short holiday until his leg has healed, at least enough for him to move without pain, but he would hear none of it. Dear chap, even in the amount of pain he was, Watson's first thought was still for me – how bored and moody I should be if dragged from London in the midst of a crime wave.

What had I ever done to deserve such devotion?

My thoughts turned back to that morning, over two decades ago, when I had first met the man that now lay before me on our sitting room's sofa.

_You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive._ My lips curled in a half-smile as I remembered the astonishment on his face at my swift deduction. How many times over these years had I rattled off a list of characteristics with the same flippant tone, and each time I had been rewarded with that same admiring grin that had so endeared him to me even on that first encounter.

Watson stirred slightly, an unconscious grimace of pain crossing his face, and I gently pulled the afghan up over his clenched hands. The horrible realization that his injury could have been so much worse still had not left me, its chilling reality still imprinted on my over-alert senses. If it _had_ been worse, it would have been entirely my fault.

And that thought drove a chill through my soul that not even the roaring fire and the comforts of my favorite pipe could dispel.

I had known since our first encounter with John Garrideb, alias Killer Evans, that the man was quite dangerous. Yes, I had even warned Watson so as we waited for the man in that darkened room – but I had been dramatic and over-confident as usual, and I had never given a thought to the facts.

Our American cousins are most definitely much freer with their weapons than our own phlegmatic British citizens; I knew that with certainty. Why then had I not been doubly cautious with our night's quarry? Why had I not searched him for weapons the moment he turned round, instead of allowing my love of the dramatic to stand there and let loose a speech worthy of Watson's romantic scribblings instead?

What if Evans's aim had been truer, and he had killed Watson?

What would I have done? How could I have lived with that guilt?

Why did I insist on continually taking for granted the only thing in the world more dear to me than those little deductive problems I lived my empty life for the sole pleasure of solving?

Those moments in Nathan Garrideb's rooms following that awful confrontation will forever be imprinted indelibly on my memory. That instant when I saw the flash from Evans's gun and saw Watson drop to his knees beside me, crying out in pain, will ring with terrible clarity for years to come in my nightmares. Even now, I shiver at the remembrance.

I shall never forget the intense relief that washed over me, almost making me feel faint, when I bent over him and he looked up at me with one of his odd, fixing looks, trying to smile at me through the pain, telling me everything was all right.

Could that be similar to what he felt when I dropped my deception with Culverton Smith and revealed that I was perfectly all right? Could his justifiable anger be comparable to the feeling I had toward Evans tonight?

Half crazed from relief that Watson would be fine, and half demented with hatred toward the man that almost took the most important person in my life away without a second thought, I might have, in all deliberate seriousness, killed Evans had Watson not grasped my arm tightly, insisting that he was quite all right.

How many times had he done something of the kind, remonstrating with me when I became too irascible with Scotland Yard or timid clients? How many times had his unquestioning loyalty been the only buffer that bridged the deep gap between me and all others in my life save him alone? Just how much had I come, in the last twenty-odd years, to depend on the man sleeping restlessly before me?

Did Watson know how badly I needed him? How much I trusted and depended on him? Had I ever told him these thoughts which had just now come rushing unbidden to the forefront of my mind?

No, I doubted it. And as good as I had become at burying all feeling under my saturnine exterior, it would have taken a far greater detective than even I am to deduce what I truly felt underneath my cold ways.

Watson would awaken in less than an hour. I had under sixty minutes to decide what, if anything, I would say to him.

But, I reflected with a small smile, gazing down at the restless form of my dearest friend; I knew that, whatever I said or did not say, Watson would understand. For some odd reason, he always did. That one elusive quality that made him the only man to ever break past my self-made defenses.

And that, I rather think, is the truest definition of friendship I have ever heard of.

* * *

**There you go, _Igiveup_! **


	2. Epilogue

_**That Elusive Quality**

* * *

_

**Author's Note: I've been thinking about Pompey's review - and I'd like to have seen a little more of Watson too, poor chap. So here's an eppie. Enjoy. _KCS_**

* * *

_Watson's POV_

I became dimly aware of various sensations as I slowly struggled to overcome the effects of the morphine, the chiefest of which was a sharp throbbing pain in my right leg.

How I detested all forms of sedatives (partially colored by my continual struggle to keep my friend from abusing them)! They never failed to leave me feeling quite sluggish, almost making the side effects not worth the relief from the pain. But both Holmes and my fellow-practitioner Anstruther had insisted absolutely that I would not rest properly without something in the way of a pain reliever, and I had not had the strength to refuse.

As my muddled brain began to be more functional, I began to recall the horrific events of the last – how many had it been? Six hours? Seven? I attempted once more to focus my attention, fighting a losing battle against the effects of the morphine.

As I tried to move, I felt something or someone gently pushing my shoulders back onto the sofa and a familiar voice telling me to lie still. Too weak to fight, I did so; and as I did, bits and pieces of what had happened began to filter back through my slowly-returning consciousness.

We had been waiting, impatiently on my part at least, for Killer Evans to return to Nathan Garrideb's rooms. I remembered stepping out of the shadows beside Holmes, pointing my revolver at the American. About the rest of the evening, I had difficulty remembering clearly. Even now, the events following my getting shot were rather hazy at best.

I did, most vividly, remember the abject terror on Holmes's face as I fell from the impact of the bullet slamming into my leg – it shall always haunt me as a replica of the same horror I felt when I returned to the Reichenbach Falls that terrible day over ten years ago, when I thought Holmes to be gone forever.

My poor Holmes, he had been so absolutely and completely frightened that he had not even cared that he dropped his usual guard down. I have seen him distraught before, but never to the extent that he had been last – or was it this? – night. The look in his eyes as he fell to his knees beside me on that cold floor will remain in my memory long after the pain from this injury has worn off.

That haunted look of near-terror had not fully faded even after we had made it back to Baker Street and my medical colleague had seen to my injury, which was not actually that serious. My last recollection before falling to sleep was of my companion nervously pacing up and down the room, his shaking hands barely able to hold his cigarette.

I tried once more to open my eyes, and this time I succeeded. When my hazy vision cleared, I saw Sherlock Holmes sitting in a chair beside the sofa, looking at me solicitously.

"How are you feeling, old chap?" he asked, his keen eyes searching my face to make deductions for himself as to my condition.

"I - have been - better," I admitted, my voice slightly thick from that blasted medication.

I began to move a little, as the sofa underneath me was not the most comfortable article of furniture Mrs. Hudson possessed. Holmes had insisted on my staying there so that he could "watch over me," and he had been in such a near-panicked state even after my wound had been dressed that I gave in without question to him.

But I moved too much, too quickly, and a hot flash of pain shot through me. At my involuntary gasp Holmes flinched and his brow creased worriedly.

"Don't try to move, Watson!" His words came out sharper than I believe he intended them to be, and I saw the worry lines in his face deepen at my surprised look.

"You know, my dear Holmes," I said, shutting my eyes for a moment against the pain, then opening them and finishing my statement, "you would make a most terrible physician."

He stared at me for a moment, and then his mouth twitched in that peculiar half-smile he was wont to give me. I matched it with a weak grin of my own, and I was rewarded to see his features relax somewhat.

He straightened out the tangled afghan that he must have put over me while I slept and then sat back in his chair, scrutinizing me carefully but attempting to not look obvious about the fact. I could not restrain a low laugh.

"What do you find so amusing, Watson?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow at me.

"I am not likely to leave this life because of a superficial flesh wound, Holmes," I said, looking him directly in the eye, "so for the love of heavens stop worrying yourself so! You look simply frightful!"

"Thank you, Doctor," he replied dryly, and I was glad to see some of his old odd humor returning to his face and to his tone of voice.

His unusual and uncontrolled emotional outburst had been, although very welcome to me, rather much of a shock – to both our nerves, I supposed. I was most certainly overjoyed to find, after over twenty years in this extraordinary man's company, that my ideas were correct, and that there really was a heart as great as his formidable deductive powers hidden in that aloof façade.

But this was also slightly awkward, as I knew just how much Holmes hated to be caught with his defenses down. I had no wish for him to feel any more uncomfortable than he must already.

I tentatively tried moving my legs slightly once more, and was rewarded with nothing more than another flash of pain through my injured limb. With a soft curse I closed my eyes again, opening them a moment later to see Holmes bending over me in concern.

"I am afraid I shall not be able to get up those stairs tonight, Holmes," I said tiredly, wishing to heaven I could remove that worried look from his face.

"Watson –" he began, stopping abruptly and turning his face away from me for a moment. I could see his forehead creasing deeply as he revolved in his quick mind the things he wished to say.

"Watson, I am so very, very sorry," he whispered at long last, dropping his gaze in what I could only assume he felt as guilt.

"Whatever for, my dear fellow?"

"For - not realizing what Killer Evans was capable of. I – I should have known how dangerous he was and should never have taken the chances I did with him. My carelessness and love of the dramatic very nearly - very nearly got you killed. And – and I never should have forgiven myself if that had happened," his voice became unaccustomarily shaky on the last word, and again he would not meet my gaze.

I was feeling nearly as uncomfortable as he was – I knew what an enormous leap this was for my friend, revealing emotions that obviously he rarely even felt, much less acknowledged. This evening's events had shaken him to the core, and I realized from a doctor's viewpoint that talking about what had happened was necessary to Holmes's emotional healing.

"Holmes." He still refused to look at me, and I attempted to raise myself slightly on the couch, a hiss of pain escaping my lips as I tried to move.

"Lie still, Watson!" he said in exasperation – but it had worked. He had turned back to look at me.

"Holmes, you must not blame yourself for what has happened," I said firmly.

"Watson –"

"Let me finish, Holmes!" said I with a show of spirit I honestly did not feel at the moment but I knew Holmes needed.

"You are _not_ to blame – if anything, I am, because I am the one who always holds the weapon and is supposed to be on the alert for physical danger. You – are – not – to – blame. Do you understand that?"

I had spoken to him as if to a child, but at that moment I believe my words were what he needed to hear. He finally looked at me directly in the eyes, where he could see that I meant every word, and then a small, shaky smile broke across his troubled face.

"Now, for heaven's sake either go to bed or get yourself a stiff brandy, Holmes," I went on, slumping back to the pillow in exhaustion, "you need one or the other."

My eyes closed, the effects of the medication still muddling my thoughts. I was nearly asleep again when I felt him pull the blanket up around me once more, and the low whisper of his voice when he thought I was already unconscious. And to hear the latter made the pain in my injured leg of so much less importance.

"Thank you, my dear Watson. Whatever should I do without you."

* * *

**OK, now that really _is_ the end.**


End file.
